


Strange Animals

by dark_lord_cuddleslut



Category: Black Snow (1990), Black Snow - Liu Heng
Genre: Anger, Childhood Friends, Depression, Explicit Sexual Content, Loneliness, M/M, Profanity, Smoking, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-09-29 23:28:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10147253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dark_lord_cuddleslut/pseuds/dark_lord_cuddleslut
Summary: Li Huiquan has served his time in a labor camp, but life on the outside is difficult. Under-educated and lonely, he moves in with family in Beijing to start fresh. When his best friend Chazi escapes prison and runs to him, he is pulled into a spiral of love, sex, and anger. After what feels like an endless string of crushing disappointments, he meets an outsider that unwittingly shows him that there's more to life than suffering.





	1. Write to Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a finished work, and it is not likely to be finished for a variety of reasons. Sorry!

_People like us have nothing to fear if we have friends._

Smoke was trailing out of a cigarette, still smoldering in a dirty ashtray. In the still air it wavered only slightly, an appropriate incense for the disheveled temple of his room. The dregs of soup in a pot sat on a table, with a chicken leg, a half-dozen spent cigarettes, and a chipped glass of water. Nothing was pristine except for an envelope destined for Qinghai, sitting on a pile of clothes.

Li Huiquang was in bed, his glazing eyes half-focused on the envelope. It took him two hours to write that letter. With so many years lost to prison, he’d never had the chance at a proper education. A worn pocket dictionary was his only tutor, frustratingly mute and for its precise definitions, too vague for Quanzi. But he had to write to Chazi. He had to. He had nothing in this fucking city.

_Goodbye, write to me. I’m going to bed._

He turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling. It was the only meaningful conversation he’d had in months, and it was nothing more than a letter he hadn’t even yet sent.

It was the same, night after night, after night. Twelve hours of meaningless work, selling foreign shit and knock-off jeans, surrounded by crowds of people he hated, chain-smoking to stave off the feelings of anxiety that followed him everywhere, and if he was lucky, at the end of the day, he’d fall asleep with a lingerie catalog under the sheets. At least it was better than being alone.

Maybe he’d have spent some time with those girls between the sheets, but after writing to Chazi, he felt like he needed some meaning in his life. Those fucking _gweilo_ girls weren’t what he wanted. He wanted to fall in love, and have a family, and have a normal life, like everyone wanted. He turned over onto his side to face the wall. There were tough guy posters hung up everywhere like it was the room of a teenage boy, nothing but oiled-up muscles posing with guns in front of explosions. He closed his eyes away from the lingerie catalog.

That’s what everyone wanted, right?


	2. Between the Bars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quanzi gets a letter back from Chazi, who is still incarcerated in Qinghai.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief mention of Quanzi thinking about hurting himself, so if you are sensitive to that sort of thing, please be warned that it is present.

Fang’s letter was waiting for Quanzi between a bill and a flier, like a wrapped piece of candy in the mud. _He wrote back. He actually wrote back!_ He grabbed at it quickly, rushing back inside the house, leaving everything else behind. He slammed the door to his room behind him and leaned back against it as he gingerly tore open the envelope and slid the letter out.

_Quanzi,_

_When I got your letter, it gave me a scare. I thought maybe my parents were dead or something._

Instantly, a smile spread across Quanzi’s face. It started to ache almost immediately, the neglected muscles unused to emotion of any kind, much less happiness. He clutched at the letter, walking in the direction of the couch without paying much mind to where he was going. There was a feeling he couldn’t quite put his finger on, a feeling like hunger that twisted his insides when he thought about Chazi being here with him. He all but fell onto the couch.

_You’re right that friends are really important. No one else has written to me since I’ve been here. Not even my family. When I got your letter, I read it over and over again. I read it 20 times. I cried every time. I’m really glad to have you as a friend._

Quanzi ran his fingers over the characters, as if somehow they could bring him closer to Chazi. Maybe if he’d been sitting right there, he would have laughed at Chazi for being such a baby, but from this distance, he felt no need to protect his masculinity. Somewhere, buried under years of repression and self-hatred, he knew he was more fragile than Chazi, prone to outbursts of emotion. How many times had he nearly bitten through his cheek to suppress the sting of tears? In his room, he was sheltered from the judgement of others. He could feel all of those things he wasn’t supposed to feel - concern, compassion, and those buried the deepest of all, love and desire.

_The weather is nice here, but I’m always hungry. I have to fight for food because everyone’s bigger than I am. Fucking southerners! It’s good you’re out now. I’m trying to get my sentence reduced._

His stomach growled, and he felt guilty for it. Quanzi didn’t believe in God, but he caught himself praying that Chazi didn’t go to sleep hungry tonight. He grabbed his pot and set it in his lap with no real intention of getting off the couch to fill it.

_Take care of yourself. And don’t forget to write to me._

_Chazi_

His eyes lingered on Fang’s name for a long moment. His lips pursed into a frown when he realized he may never see Chazi again. Getting caught shanking a guy in an alleyway and trying to rape his girlfriend gets you put away for a long time. Quanzi was out on good behavior, which was a mercy. The labor camp was hell on Earth. It was inhumane, but Chazi didn’t know any better, he just figured it was probably the right punishment for someone as violent as he was. Quanzi always felt like he never belonged in society. He knew there was something wrong with him. When they released him, he felt reluctant to go; At least he had a purpose there, even if it wasn’t anything more than filling quotas. At least someone made him sleep and eat every day. He didn’t have to think. He stuffed the letter into a pocket and pushed himself off of the sofa, pot in hand.

Quanzi had been living with Auntie Luo, not far from where he grew up. No one trusted him after word got out that he’d been in a labor camp for the past few months, and the fact that he had been released early just intensified that mistrust. Half of them probably figured some guard took a bribe and looked the other way, even though he’d been cooperating with the local beat cop. The cop, Liu, who was Quanzi’s age, stopped in on occasion to make sure he was on the up-and-up. Quanzi hated it, hated him.

Nothing else had meant as much as the letter from Chazi. He hadn’t been home long, but in that brief few weeks, what’d happened? He worked most of the time. Maybe went to the karaoke bar every once in awhile, but other than that, it was just instant noodles and masturbation. Maybe if he had someone to share the time with, it wouldn’t all feel so mundane, but he didn’t want to be responsible for someone else’s happiness. Quanzi often wondered how anyone managed to maintain a romantic relationship; He couldn’t maintain his own sanity or stability. In a rare moment of self-awareness, he couldn’t figure out how people like him were supposed to have a boyfriend.

A girlfriend. A _girlfriend_. The whistle of a kettle brought him to the present, mercy-killing the thoughts he didn’t want to think. Quickly, his wide ears reddening with shame, he grabbed the bowl of noodles and darted back to his room.

Everything was unsatisfying. Whatever didn’t make him feel numb made him ache. He was 25 and tired of life, bored with living, and was losing interest in giving it another chance, and another chance, and another chance, one after another, after another. He slurped his noodles pensively, brooding, irritated with his own inner monologue. Before long, the intrusive thoughts were almost too much to take without an outburst. He thought about hitting himself, maybe breaking his hand on the wall, maybe just taking that box cutter over there, and…

He squeezed his eyes shut, still clutching the chopsticks, his knee bobbing with the nervous tapping of his leg. _Chazi told me to take care of myself_ , he thought. Quanzi fished the letter out of his pocket and just looked at it for a long moment. _I’m the only one he has. I can’t leave him alone_. He took a deep breath and stood, leaving the letter on the cleanest spot he could find on the table. It was getting late.

Sleep was one of the few pleasures he could rely on. Sometimes he daydreamed about it at his stall, how nice it was going to feel to have a full belly, how relaxing it would be to slip naked under the sheets, stripped of the stink and filth of the marketplace. He had even picked favorites out of the lingerie catalogue, and in his dire loneliness had given them names, rich fathers, and fast cars.

It was a rare night that he didn’t need the catalogue to get it up, but today was obviously different than other days. It wasn’t a smile on his face so much as a smirk, and he wasn’t conscious of it, but at least it was something. Quanzi was thinking about Chazi, how he must be getting ready to sleep too. He wondered how Fang looked behind bars, maybe a little sullen, a little forlorn, a little dirty. Quanzi didn’t notice he was getting harder when he thought about Chazi sulking in his cot, and as if it wasn’t bad enough that he was fantasizing about another man - and his childhood friend, on top of that! - but that dirty, surly face he was imagining made the image even better in his mind. He reached across the blanket to grope at himself absent-mindedly through the covers. He grunted at the contact, cutting off the sound by sucking in his lower lip. How quickly he went from anger to this, thoughts of violence squeezing out of the too-small space for emotion in his head to make room for lust.

Hurriedly, he shoved his hand under the sheets and grabbed ahold of himself. He stifled a small moan, still imagining Chazi’s filthy, pouting face between the bars, and squeezed tighter. There was nothing languid about the act - Quanzi just wanted to get the release of a little death out of the way before falling asleep. The _gweilo_ girls were far enough from his mind that he couldn’t remember their names, he was too busy with his head under the covers and his lips wrapped around Chazi’s cock. He’d never sucked a guy off before, but he certainly didn’t want anyone’s dick up his ass, and his imagination wasn’t exactly writing a masterpiece at this point. He was muttering to himself about what a cocksucking _bōlí_ he was, denigrating himself as his shuddering body made the bed creak.

Usually, he’d reach for a sock, but he came so hard and so suddenly that it overwhelmed him. His body seized up, muscles freezing, his hand jerking a couple of times and locking tight around his erection. He exhaled sharply, a whimpering moan escaping with his breath. He barely had the control to clamp a hand over his mouth, his eyes squeezing shut as he prayed Auntie Luo couldn’t hear him. When his breathing finally slowed, he moved the hand over his eyes, trying to wipe the shame off his face. He leaned over the bed for a dirty shirt and dragged it across his belly and scrubbed the sheet with it.

There was a long moment where he just stared into the blue-tinted night, the walls lined with action hero posters too far away to see in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bōlí - a relatively tame slur for a gay person


End file.
